The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1887-07-20
A PLAIN TALK TO GIRLS.
Rose Terry Cooke Gives Some Advics
Worth Needing.

Rose Terry Cooke Gives Some Advice
Worth Needing.
from the New York Mail and Express.1
They go to bed at night and fall into a
stupor, why not? Is there one breath of
fresh air in their sleeping box? Do they
ever, except in the heat of summer, have
so much as crack OF the window open?
IL there is a fireplace in their room or a
stove-pipe hole, don't they close them up
as tightly as they can? No wonder it is SO
haro 10 wake up in the morning. / can
hear them groan and moan and yearn and
scold now at the imperative summons to
get up. And what do they find on the
breakfast table? Sweet fried cakes
something in the shape of meat,
generally fried, potato either fried or stew
cakes" fried, of course. Now, am not
going on crusade against the frying-pan
for lit he's its uses, but when see
girl sit down at the breakfast table with
dull eyes, a sallow face, listless manner,
and proceed to make that early meal of
strong coffee, sweetened cakes, fried pork
and potatoes, with sequence OF griddle
cakes literally buttered and drowned in
molasses, feel like shutting her up for
weeks starvation on bread and water.
Then there is dinner; tough meat, baked
vegetables, pie, any kind of a pie with a
crust either tough or sandy, tasting strong
" of lard and filled with the thing most
convenient. A f8vorite pie in Our country
homes is constructed OF sliced lemon, -four
and molasses, baked into mass as unfit
for the human stomach as stewed rubber
overshoe.
Tea time brings cakes of various sorts,
probably more pie, cheese, fruit pre-
served and 60 ill.done it is fermented, or
foh e 4 w
harmless, strong tea and hot biscuit. Re-
pssts ut for
A eassowary.
Onthe plains of Timbuctoo.
Then to begin the day again. After
breakfast they run upstairs, spread up
their bed with all the Civilizations of their
bodies during the night still imprisoned
in it, they perhaps sweep the floor and
dust the furniture; then they go down
stairs and sew a little, or practice half an
hour, if they are so fortunate as to own a
cheap piano or parlor organ. It is posi-
ole that they may make some cake If it's
needed; they dwaddle great DEAL read a
little and then it is dinner time; and they
sit down to dinner as they did TO break.
fast, in an easy old gown, perhaps a
wrapper; their front hair wrung into
back hair in q dusty knot,
again to dress for the afternoon. They
lace up their corsets tighter, put on boots
with heels two inches high, twist their hair
into an unnatural fluff which covers their
foreheads and gives them the aspect of q
Skye terrier, put on dress which is so
well fttingn that they cannot raise their
arms to their heads in it and go out to
walk and see what they can see. After
tea another girl comes in and they giggle
I, To- @ho
go cut together, perhaps with a young
man, to some third class show, or to ball
or drive. They get ready, slip into their
unsired beds after hanging the dresses
they have worn eight or ten hours in that
tiehtshut closet, and repeat the expert
ence of the night before.
Now they have sown the seed.
What will the harvest be?'
First-If it is winter, heavy cold; the
misussd lungs forced to breathe over and
over again air that has no vitality in il,
ar that is absolutely roxious, become con-
sested more or less, and they begin to
cough and sueeZe. If they have scrofuls
hidden IN their constitutions-and how
few people have not-the harvest OF this
planting will be bronchitis or consump-
ton.
The next crop is dyspepsia; they put
| into that delicate organ, the human stom-
1
its next neighbOr, the lungs, and weak
ened by the slow circulation of vitiated
blood, vitiated by the bad air, a mass OF
indigestible stuff they call food; at first
they do not notice any special effect; they
are young and strong and can bear good
deal of physical misfortune without much
trouble, bnt after time food begins to
distress them. life gets very tiresome, they
have acid tastes in their mouths, heart
1 la
unpleasant things to talk of, but they are a
great deal more unpleasant to have.
Then they lose their rest, their appetite,
strength, courage, cheerfulness.
This is a bad crop; it realizes the prime
val cure. "ThorDs and briers shall it bring
forth unto thee"
So they began to diet; but there is har.
vest from that corset that abrogstes the
good of diet.
They don't even lace tight" I never
knew q woman who did l mean who said
she did. have had stout woman of fly
to tell me the same thing, adding tri-
umphantly-''and 1 wear the same sized
corset did at sixteen"
l have every reason to suppose she
thought was a fool. L must be, to be-
lieve that thirty-six years had not altered
the size and shape OF woman l must
be not to see in the abr upt angle her hips
made with her waist, the immense size of
those hips and whole shape of her figure,
rluch like wasp and bumblebee cut ia
two and the wasp's fore half spliced to the
| other half of the bee, the open secret that
she gradually forced her ribs together
above her lungs and stomach, till the natu-
raj spread of her figure lad been ruthlessly
jammed downward.
However, for the sake of argument we
will say they don't lace; but they do press
on all those sc fl muscles about the organs
of life an unyieldiDg of bone and steel that
takes all their strength away by supplying
artificial strength.
Tie your arm up in sling for six months
and see how useless it will become, and do
you think their stomachs and liverS can
bear the stiff pressure OF corset without
harm?
"Ohl" says host of voices, one after
another. ~ can't live without my corset
The minute leave it of en- just as weak
as kitten; all gone; can hardly sit
upl"
They have told the story now They
have disabled themselves; they have ruined
the wonderful work of God in their bodies,
aud the result, the harvest, Is fearful; their
interior organs are all forced out of place,
crowded, weakened, cougested. Then to
oil fbcv add shoaa